DDT - Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Zombie King × Little White Flower (Side Story)

My name is Yi Shuhan. Shu, as in distant. Han, as in cold.

In my limited childhood vocabulary, "distant" and "cold" were not very good words. So why was I given a name like that?

My teacher said that no parent in the world doesn't love their child. I knew what "parent" and "child" meant, but I didn't know what "love" was.

The teacher said our moms and dads love us. Love isn't something they say all the time, but the good things they do for us—that is love.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a mother. I didn't have a dad, either. I only had a father.

My father didn't allow me to call him "Dad." It would make him unhappy, and if he was unhappy, I couldn't be happy either.

For as long as I could remember, it was just my father and me at home. Did my father love me? I wasn't sure, but I knew he was supposed to be good to me.

He gave me a place to live, he gave me food and water, he gave me the chance to grow up.

I was still young then, but I could sense malice from others, and that same malice often came from my father. Are all fathers like this?

I had never been to another child's home, so I didn't know.

The other children in kindergarten would talk about how their moms and dads took them to the amusement park on the weekend, or bought them little cakes, or made them delicious food. I was so curious. So many things could be done on the weekend. But my father would only lock me in the house. I wanted to go out and play with my father, too!

Later, when I started school, the teacher said that parents liked children who did well in their studies. I thought about that strange, malicious feeling I got from my father. Did he not love me because I wasn't obedient? A brilliant idea suddenly popped into my head.

My teachers all said I was exceptionally bright, as if my brain had been blessed. I didn't understand what "blessed" meant, but I knew "bright" was a compliment for children! But the teacher said children shouldn't be too proud, because being too proud makes you lose your motivation, and then your grades will suffer. To get good grades. To make my father like me. I couldn't be proud! Right!

My father was never home. He would always leave some cold leftovers in the house. When I was hungry, I would stand on my tiptoes to get a plate from the top shelf of the fridge, put it in the microwave to heat it up, and then I could eat. I had even secretly taught myself how to use the microwave. See, I was a smart kid. Later, my father started leaving some cash at home. He said if I was hungry, I could buy something to eat. Clutching the pink banknotes, I felt that my father must love me. He was afraid I would go hungry.

The school liked to rank us, and my name was always at the very top. The teacher said adults liked children whose names were at the top of the list. But why was my father still unwilling to give me a second glance?

Later, in middle school, the school held parent-teacher conferences. My father never went. My only wish in middle school was for my father to attend just one conference. I wanted him to know how hard his daughter worked, how capable she was, that she was a role model for everyone. But he never came.

I had always been curious about who my mother was and where she had gone. Had they divorced, or…

On a rare occasion when my father was home, we actually sat down to eat together. He was stern and silent, but I broke the taboo of not speaking during a meal and asked him where my mother had gone.

I never expected his face to darken so suddenly. He slammed down his bowl and chopsticks and left.

For the next month, he didn't leave me any money. It wasn't until I fainted from hunger in the classroom and was sent to the hospital that he finally showed up.

I should have hated him. He and my mother brought me into this world. My mother was gone, and he ignored me, paid me no mind, and even abandoned me just because I asked where she was.

I nearly starved to death in the classroom.

I didn't understand what I had done wrong.

I hated his neglect. I hated that he didn't love me.

Yes, I could feel it. He had not an ounce of affection for me. I wasn't a fool.

Did I not deserve to be loved? I wanted to get his attention. I indulged in smoking, drinking, and straightening my hair.

But all I got in return was his disdain and his complete refusal to come home.

For all those years, my father never told me what he did for a living. When I was younger, I could imagine he was a cold, ruthless assassin, carrying out missions all over the world, which was why he couldn't come home. But as I stumbled my way into growing up, that ridiculous childhood fantasy was shattered.

Until one day, I saw him on television—a man in high spirits, wearing a crisp suit and a well-groomed mustache, a gentle, faint smile on his refined face.

I was stunned. I had never imagined that the man who was always so cold at home could be so perfect in front of others! So… admirable!

At that moment, I wished I could announce to the whole world that the handsome, sophisticated man on the screen was my father!

The irony was that a child was learning about her father for the first time through a television screen.

My father was a scientist, a true scientist. He had made significant contributions to the country, and even the world, in the field of biology.

We didn't have a computer at home back then, but everyone knew about surfing the internet. I heard you could look up famous people on Baidu. My father was famous, so I should be able to find him.

That was my first time in an internet cafe. I paid a 20-yuan deposit, and the owner secretly set me up with a computer. Filled with a strange excitement, I opened the web browser.

Sure enough, on his Baidu Baike entry, I saw my father's public information.

My father, only in his thirties, had won dozens of international awards. Married, widowed, with one daughter.

When I saw the word "widowed," my heart felt like it had been struck a heavy blow. I suddenly couldn't breathe, as if I were suffocating.

Widowed. How could he be widowed? Did "widowed" mean that my mother… was no longer in this world?

I typed "Yi Mingchang's wife" into the search bar, and a series of news articles popped up. They were all about a car accident or something similar. Online news wasn't very developed back then, so the articles only gave a brief overview of the event.

So that was why… That was why my father never mentioned my mother.

I think I started to understand his sternness and his melancholy. After all, he had lost the one he loved.

I didn't seem to hate my father anymore.

This home had always been too cold. I still craved even a sliver of care, something that couldn't even be called love.

I poured my heart and soul into getting into the bioengineering program at my father's university, just so he would see my effort, just so he would notice this daughter of his who wasn't half bad.

Then, the apocalypse—something that had only existed in novels and movies—arrived. One by one, my classmates gained the legendary abilities, while I could only rely on tools like an iron pipe or a fire axe to protect myself.

I thought that in the apocalypse, humanity would band together and help each other. But I was too naive.

Even as I was being tied to a bed by the classmate who had always seemed the most gentle and refined, I couldn't believe he would do something so despicable.

Just when I thought I was about to fall into the abyss, she appeared.

Chi Junluo. That woman with short black hair and light blue eyes appeared like a god from the heavens above the abyss I was about to fall into, and she pulled me back.

If she hadn't been the Zombie King, perhaps everything would have been different. Perhaps she wouldn't have left.

I don't like to use the word "death." It doesn't fill me with fear so much as a sense of helplessness.

But if she hadn't been the Zombie King, I would have… become a slave to the abyss, and then a vessel for human experimentation.

Chi Junluo, she saved me many times. If my father and mother gave me my first life, then Chi Junluo gave me countless rebirths.

It was a rebirth. She let me see the truth of my father's selfishness, gave me the chance to learn the truth about the car accident all those years ago, and let me see just how much my father hated me, and how much my mother loved me.

The apocalypse had gone on for so long. I prided myself on having seen countless human tragedies. I grieved for the suffering of humanity, and I wanted to use my talent and my intellect to save them from their plight. But I never once thought to try and understand her.

Humanity was suffering, but was Chi Junluo not? She was also a victim of this tragedy!

And the one who started this tragedy was my own selfish father.

I hated zombies. They were ugly, disgusting, antisocial—they shouldn't exist. But whenever I remembered that my father had created them, I felt ashamed and nauseated. To be honest, I hated myself even more. My father had a hand in my birth, and he was also solely responsible for the creation of the zombies. What was the difference between me and them? We were both useless, worthless products. Garbage that only brought death to others.

Yes. Not only did I bring death to my mother, I also caused Chi Junluo, the Zombie King who had managed to survive the persecution of the zombie virus, to lose her second life.

How hateful am I?

I watched that gentle woman, that incredibly powerful Zombie King, inject herself with the "Hope" reagent I had developed.

The wind was so strong that day. I thought I saw pain and despair in her eyes, just like the day we first met, when she had broken down and lost control in mid-air. To this day, I still don't understand what she went through, and now I'll never have the chance to find out.

Her powerful zombie body, formed from the virus, disintegrated under the effects of the reagent. By the time we came down from the base's walls to look, all that was left of her was a blackened skeleton.

Around me, the researchers were sighing. The powerful Zombie King's physical body hadn't been preserved, so it had lost most of its research value.

I just stood there, stunned, not yet recovered from our farewell just minutes before. She was really gone, had left this world forever, with no possibility of return.

It was better that she was gone. She must have been living in pain. And I, who had spent so much time with her, had never noticed a single clue. I was too stupid. Chi Junluo… before she left, her only request was for me to call her name. Yes, I was probably the last person in this world who would remember her name.

In everyone else's eyes, she would always be the Zombie King.

She was my Sister Chi, Chi Junluo. I will never forget her, not even in death.

Chi Junluo's departure was a huge blow to me. The "Hope" reagent had been developed, the age of zombies would soon end, and I was no longer needed. I didn't know where to go or what to do. Should I continue to live on, carrying Chi Junluo's name, or…

Fortunately, in my confusion, I hadn't forgotten Chi Junluo's last words. There was a gift she had prepared in the RV.

I stood up and walked away from the skeleton surrounded by researchers. I saw the RV not far away. After opening the door, I saw my father, pale and frail, sleeping soundly. And… a beautiful woman who looked a little like me.

The woman was gently holding my sleeping father's hand. Her face was pale, as if it hadn't seen the sun in years.

Hearing the door open, she looked up, tilting her head slightly. "You are?"

In that instant, my eyes suddenly welled with tears. I understood what Chi Junluo had meant by her gift.

"…Are you Ms. Shu Mingqing?" I asked, fighting back a sob as I tried to confirm her identity.

When I saw the woman hesitate before nodding, my tears finally broke free.

Chi Junluo, thank you. Truly.

You've given me hope to live on once again.

That day, the wind was strong. I took Chi Junluo's left wrist bone. On that five-centimeter-long piece of bone was a golden pattern. Inexplicably, that bone called to me, telling me that the pattern was related to me.

Tying it with a long red string, I fastened the wrist bone to my right wrist.

I told myself that Chi Junluo was still by my side.

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